The Mask
by SweetSinger2010
Summary: Hera had only handled Kanan's mask three times since he died. She'd shoved it-and the grief-in a box. She didn't expect to turn around and see her tiny son wearing it, those same quirky eyebrows peeking over the top.


A/N: Because **ddaulton94** , **WestwardGlance** , and I clearly had nothing better to do on a Saturday night, we challenged each other with different prompts. ddaulton94 gave me this one: Jacen finding Kanan's mask. The task was to write approximately a thousand words or less in an hour. Well...two hours later, here's a fic! Be sure to check **out ddaulton94's** "The Prank" and **WestwardGlance's** "Pebbles!" Hope y'all enjoy this little scene!

5/6: This fic was supposed to be done quick and dirty, no editing. But I broke the rules to fix some typos. Figured nobody would mind, lol.

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The Mask

 _4 ABY_

Hera's hands trembled as she turned the mask over in her hands. Kanan's mask. How she'd hated it. She understood its purpose: to conceal the injury, to hide the blinded eyes from prying glances. But it had hidden him from her, too. In a time when all she'd wanted was to hold and comfort him, to help soothe the world of hurt, he'd retreated from her. She'd hated that mask for helping him do it. She'd gotten used to it over time, but she still always, always, _always_ preferred seeing his face unobstructed. She preferred looking into his scarred eyes, knowing how easily the strike from Maul's blade could have been fatal, and thinking _He's alive, he's alive, he's alive._

Before now, before today, she'd only handled the mask three times since his passing. Once in the cave on Lothal when she'd found it right where he'd left it, once to put it away in his cabin on the _Ghost_ , and once to store it with her own things when she and Jacen moved into their apartment on Hosnian Prime. She actively avoided going through the small box that held Kanan's belongings; some things were still too painful, still made her feel so overwhelmed by grief that she couldn't breathe, and that was one.

But her three-year-old knew nothing of her private pain. All he knew was that one particular shelf in her closet—the only one he could reach—made a very suitable landing field for some of his little model ships. And when one of the X-Wings had a _very exciting landing_ atop a particular half-open box and fell in, he knew his hand was small enough to fit through the crack and retrieve it. But he hadn't found his ship. He'd found his father's mask instead.

Hera hadn't been paying attention when he came up behind her in the kitchen as she washed dishes. She heard him, of course; she was never _not_ listening for her son. Too much quiet was always a good indicator that trouble was afoot. But she didn't look up from her task when he came in, little bare feet smacking lightly on the floor.

"Mama?"

"Hmm?"

"Bean did this?"

It never once occurred to her that she was about to turn around and see her son wearing his father's mask, his face all but completely covered by it. "Did what, love?"

" _This."_ He nudged the back of her leg and she turned then, making a strangled sound when she saw those little quirky brows peeking over the top of the mask. He took it off, eyes wide and perfect and _Kanan's_ and curious, and he pointed to the jaig eyes painted on the surface, skimming his finger over the paint. The jaig eyes—that's all he wanted to know about. He was asking if Sabine had painted them. He'd seen them in her artwork before. He was smart. He made the connection. He wasn't asking anything about the mask at all.

Intellectually, Hera knew that. And she opened her mouth to tell him that, yes, Sabine had painted it. Long ago. But Hera wasn't thinking intellectually. She was thinking about the knot of grief in her stomach and how she _did not want to cry_ in front of her son and she snapped, "Jacen Caleb Syndulla, where did you get this?" as she snatched it from his hand.

The look on his face then—it hurt her worse than the grief did. He took half a step back, utterly crestfallen by the harshness of her tone.

She squeezed her eyes shut, crouching down in front of him. "Jacen," she whispered.

He gnawed his lower lip, glancing out the window across the room. It was dark outside. "It's bedtime?" He didn't quite meet her eye. She didn't touch him.

Hera swallowed hard. "Yes."

He nodded, turning. "I go brush teeth."

"Okay."

"You—" He stopped, like he was afraid to know the answer to the question he was about to ask. "You come tuck me in?"

"Yes, love." She couldn't stop the tears that were welling in her eyes. "Always. Just call when you're ready for me."

He left without another word and Hera sat back against the cabinet with a _thump_ , resting her forehead on her knees, listening to the sound of her own heart breaking as she heard Jacen going through his bedtime routine without her. Kanan's mask dangled limply from one hand. She shouldn't have snapped. She should never, never, _never_ have snapped that way at her tender-hearted child. It was her fault, anyway, that he was curious about the mask, that he'd never seen it. He'd always been so curious about Kanan and she'd always been so guarded about what she told him. She did it to protect herself from pain, but that was selfish and it was stupid and now that old, familiar voice of self-doubt was whispering to her, _You weren't ready to be a mother. You can't give him what he needs. You can still barely take care of yourself—_

Jacen's timid call swiftly reminded her that ready or not, she _was_ a mother, and taking care of herself was going to have to wait, because right now, her little boy needed her to love away his hurt and confusion.

The mask still clenched tightly in one hand, Hera walked to Jacen's room. He was sitting up in bed, watching for her. His eyes were still wide and his shoulders drooped, like he'd curled in on himself. "I brushed real good," he said quickly when she sat down beside him. "See?" He stuck his tongue out for her evaluation.

A minty smell lingered on his breath and Hera smiled. They'd been working hard on keeping toothpaste in his mouth and out of the sink. "Yes, you did." She noticed his pajamas were on backward and inside out, but she decided to let it pass. "I'm proud of you for getting ready for bed all by yourself. You're such a big boy."

He flushed at the praise and his dimples showed and he scrambled into her lap, burying his face in her shoulder. "My ship was in the box," he said miserably. He was shaking just the tiniest bit. "It fell in."

The box. The box where Kanan's mask had been. Hera held tightly to her son, rocking slowly. "Mama's sorry," she whispered. "Mama's so sorry. I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at you."

He nodded and she continued, because she felt like she owed him an explanation. "I'm not mad at all," she said. "I was…surprised. This—" She put the mask in Jacen's lap, smoothing wild tufts of hair from his eyes as he turned it over in his hands. "It belonged to daddy."

"Daddy," he repeated, awed. "For true?" Hera smiled at his broken syntax; _for true?_ was his endearing mix-up between the phrases _for real?_ and _is that true?_

She looked at the mask and remembered the first time Kanan had bowed his head and allowed her to strip it from him and touch the scars beneath; it had been an act more intimate and vulnerable than anything that had ever passed between them.

"For true," she affirmed, swallowing around the lump in her throat. "It was daddy's. And you were right—Sabine painted it for him."

Jacen tilted his head back and looked up at her. "Why?" He pointed to the jaig eyes. "Bean said they're for brave people. Daddy was brave?"

She laughed shakily. "Daddy was very brave." And it had cost him his life, but had given Hera hers and Jacen's. But she couldn't tell that story tonight, nor the one about how he'd come to need the mask in the first place. Jacen didn't need to know—not yet, anyway—and Kanan hadn't been brave only in the face of great danger. He'd been like that from the moment she met him, even though he'd tried to hide it away. She'd loved him for it.

She smiled, thinking of a story she _could_ tell Jacen. She pressed her fingertips over his, tracing the jaig eyes with him.

"Have I ever told you the story of how daddy saved Chopper from a nest of angry mynocks?"


End file.
